Behind the Cover: November 2017 with Rusty Ockenden and Cole Navin

Behind the Cover: November 2017 with Rusty Ockenden and Cole Navin

We can’t stress this enough… there are so many great photos that never make it to print. That is why this season, in our 31st Volume, we have decided to make a bit of a dent in that pile and pick two covers per issue. As with the October magazine, one insane photo covers the front, and another awe-inspiring capture dawns the flip side to stoke out our readership as much as possible. We kept this idea for the November issue, and looking at the shots from Scott Serfas and Cole Martin of Rusty Ockenden and Cole Navin, we are pretty stoked how it turned out. Get a behind the scenes look from Scott above, and the story that went into making the Navin shot below for our latest installment of the Behind the Cover series. Thanks for looking! Pick up a copy of TransWorld Magazine here!

“We were on a month long European Vans trip to film for LANDLINE., starting in Chemnitz, Germany and eventually planning go to Czech Republic. Dresden, Germany was a big town roughly a half hour away. It was under our radar the whole trip. Dresden had the highest concentration of Nazis in the world. So we cruised over there one day and found this old but still functioning soccer stadium. It had a few spots there, but it was on lock down. Benny Urban talked to some of the stadiums employees and that lead us to the town mayor. Harry Hagan and Benny drove over there to chat about getting permission and the mayor informed us that Hitler built the stadium on slave labor… I believe Harry had some fake insurance form on his phone and between the language barrier and the fake insurance form, the mayor gave us permission to snowboard the C-rail out front. He even told us a stadium employee would unlock the gate at 9am the following day. Initially we were planning to drive to Czech that night, but instead we got a few hotel rooms in Dresden so we could wake up and hit the rail and bounce right after.

Just like the mayor said the stadium employee open the gate at 9am and I asked him if I could go through the building to shoot the photo from a balcony 80 or so feet up. The employees were more than accommodating, offering us to come in to the heated building and use the bathroom if we need to. The rail was no joke. I think it had everyone on edge a bit. There was no good escape route if you fell off early. You get going so fast and it sends you right into the other rail. Every time he came off early Cole would go straight to his back on the stairs to prevent riding into the other rail. I can't remember exactly how long it took but it wasn't too long. I think stadium employees were just as hyped as we were when Cole rode away. The mayor asked us to send him the photo when we were done. Maybe I'll mail a copy over to Germany for him.” – Cole Martin